


Honest Conversations

by NinaWhite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Because of course he does, Bitchy Hannibal, F/M, Hannibal does not deal well with being dependant, He finds a dog, M/M, Weirdly Calm Will, nearly forgot about that, oh and also cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-10-12 12:11:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20564120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinaWhite/pseuds/NinaWhite
Summary: After the fall but before they can begin a new life, Hannibal and Will find a place to coalesce. In this strange in between, they must come to a new peace and a new understanding. Confined by his injuries, Hannibal finds himself regretting being at Will's mercy. You can't run away from awkward conversations about someone's ex with a gun shot wound to the gut and a broken leg.To make matters worse, he's not even being forced to listen to it in luxury.Or, Hannibal Lecter is an amazing surgeon but an Awful patient.





	1. A Small House With a White Picket Fence

The pain was more than a mere inconvenience. While the few days since the fall had seen Will bounce back to little more than stiff muscles and rapidly yellowing bruises, a gunshot wound to the gut would take considerably longer to recover from, not to mention the broken leg he had acquired from their effective but hardly risk free escape plan. After Chiyo had kindly gotten them to someone that could be trusted to patch them up adequately and quietly for a discrete fee, they had bounced from pillar to post and Hannibal had swam in a mire of painkillers only to find himself dangerously uninhibited and still in a not unimpressive amount of pain. His memories of the past few days were mostly blurred and hazy things, though he was relatively sure he had babbled something embarrassing at Will and had been saved the fallout of that solely due to his drug addled mind only being able to drudge up words in his mother tongue.

Now however, the world around him was in sharp relief. The sun through the jeep’s windows stung his weary eyes, the wet scent of woodland mulch bit at his nose, the cheap clothes he wore scratched at his skin and the small dingey cabin offended him down to the core. This was not like Will’s small but comfortable home, well worn but equally loved. This place was borderline rotten, little better than a shack despite obviously having started life as better than it’s fate.

“We’re here,” Chiyoh announced, killing the engine. They were still a little way down the trail, not quite out of ear shot, but far enough that if anyone was home they would likely have to be listening out in order to have heard the approaching car.

“I can certainly see why no one would likely come to call on this place,” Hannibal said, eyeing the building dubiously. They had already planned to spend the winter there and leave with the break in the season once they were absolutely certain they had been presumed dead.

“It’s off the grid,” Chiyoh continued. He was sure she had already told him this, but he hadn’t exactly been at his most lucid of late. “There is a current owner, but he has no job, no family. No friends that I could find.”

“No one to come calling,” Hannibal added as Will stared half hazily at the cabin from his place in the back seat.

“No, no one,” Chiyoh agreed Her hands curled in her lap and she look out of the drivers side widow with her jaw clenched, though whether that was to avoid looking at the cabin or at Hannibal he could not say. She was clearly conflicted about the next step of their plan either way. Having earned her freedom by blood had done little to increase her desire to spill it. It was an irritating commonality among those that he found himself actually caring about.

He glanced back at Will briefly, wishing slightly uncharitably that their injuries had been reversed so that he could simply do what needed to be done and get on with making this shack somewhat close to habitable.

“I’ll go and vacate the current occupant,” Chiyoh said, finally, as she unbuckled her seat belt.

Will’s hand landed on her shoulder and she froze, looking for all the world like she would happily cut off the offending appendage.

“No, I’ll take care of this,” he said, slowly and sounding a little vacant, as though coming out of a powerful daydream. Even excessively blinking as he often did when forced to communicate with someone he was not totally at ease with. “I’m not putting you in that position again.” And with that, Will got out of the car and began to stride down the trail, the sun glancing off of the blade of the small knife he had in his hand.

Hannibal and Chiyoh shared a glance. While the chivalry was somewhat surprising, he could not pretend to be disappointed at Will volunteering for this. Even the faint twinge of jealousy at the fact that Will was capable and he, currently, was not did little to dampen his joy at what was happening before him.

Will didn’t walk so much as stalk to the house, the small knife in his hand flicking side to side and flashing erratically in the sunlight. A golden flash of each nervous twitch This wasn’t the meek yet prickly creature he had first met or the seething malleable fury he had become after realising the extent of Hannibal’s manipulations. No, this was something more, something predatory and sleek and single minded.

He didn’t slow when he reached the house, climbing the three steps to the wrap around porch in smooth strides and swinging his final step into a powerful kick to the door. The lock shattered, wood splintered and Hannibal near choked on his tongue. How he kept forgetting Will’s background in law enforcement he had no idea, but the reminder was sharper than the jolt of pain his shock sent through his gut. What other skills did he have than Hannibal had neglected to take into account?

Will disappeared into the darkness of the little cabin without fanfare and almost without breaking stride. Hannibal couldn’t tear his eyes away from the place. What he wouldn’t give to be able to see this. Killing the Dragon with Will had been incredible, but he was under no delusions about Will’s reasoning. Self preservation was a powerful motivator. A direct threat required a direct response. But this? This was killing for the sake of killing. Yes it was out of need, but he could have objected. Could have insisted on finding somewhere that did not entail a blood price. Could have-

A bloodied hand grabbed the door frame before vanishing out of view as quickly as it had appeared. Hannibal dug his nails into the car door, fighting the urge to lean forward in a desperate attempt to work out who’s hand that had been.

Then he didn’t have to worry. Bloodied, matted and grasping, an older man tripped through the door. He hit the decking hard enough to make Chiyoh flinch and made to start scrambling forward.

Hannibal could feel his mouth hanging open a little, but couldn’t bring himself to care as the man was dragged back into the shadows screaming. Oh how he ached to see this up close.

“Are you- Hannibal?”

“Hmm?” he replied, turning his face a little towards Chiyoh without taking his eyes off of the open door and darkness just beyond it.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay with him?” she asked. “He seems more dangerous than he used to be.”

“Perhaps he is,” Hannibal replied, noting the moments of inactivity from within the cabin. “But not to me.”

Chiyoh sighed from her place in the driver’s seat and Hannibal risked missing out on something to glance at her just in time to catch her near fondly rolling her eyes before muttering something uncharitable about his taste in men. From anyone else he would have found it unspeakably rude, but from Chiyoh all it did was elicit a smile. It wasn’t as though he could explain what drew him to Will without further damning himself.

“Come on, I think he’s done.”

They opened their car doors at the same time, but only Chiyoh got out. Hannibal found himself staring at the leaf litter and twigs and realising that there was near no way he could get to the cabin on his own. The cast on his leg was bad enough, but moving around with his gut wound complicated things even further. Ideally, he would be in a wheelchair, but their available resources would be thin on the ground for the next month or so. The realisation was bitter enough that it almost spoiled the occasion, or would have if the wind had not changed and brought the hot scent of fresh blood to him from his temporary home.

And hand was held out to him, a silent offer of help and Hannibal gave Chiyoh a slight smile as he accepted.

“I seem to be doing little but adding to your burdens of late,” he commented mildly, as close to an apology as he was willing to get just then.

“Is that not what family does?” she replied. With her shoulder under his arm, she helped him hobble his way down the barely there dirt road towards the cabin. Each step gifted him with another wave of breakthrough pain, but he drowned it with the anticipation of what may lay beyond the door.


	2. To Make a House a Home

The house was a horror show. Hannibal hadn’t seen anything so repugnant in decades. Leaning heavily on Chiyoh, he took in the scene from the doorway as Will washed his hands, moving with a faintly stiff posture that favoured his left a little. It was terrible. Worse than anything he could have imagined.

The shack was tiny, even more rotten on the inside than the out. The curtains were threadbare polyester monstrosities from the seventies, the small sofa looked like something that had been dragged out of a dumpster twenty years ago and the kitchenette didn’t even have a proper oven. Oh by God, he was going to have to cook on a campfire, or worse. A microwave.

At least the corpse on the floor of the small living area brightened the place up a little. The hot scent of freshly shed blood covering up a multitude of sins. It was sprawled on it’s belly, one hand still reaching forward. Deep slices littered it, showing that felling this pitiable pig had been something of a fight before the throat had been cut. Despite the surroundings not being even close to ideal, Hannibal couldn’t help but admire the violence. It was inelegant, but then such confrontations often were. It was also wild, Will being his feral little thing. A beast in the shape of a man. He had expected some sort of denial or shock, but instead the object of his affections was simply going about matters with a calm efficiency.

Or he was avoiding eye contact with Chiyoh.

“Will the sofa do?” she asked.

“For now,” he replied, holding back a grimace. The very idea of touching it was repugnant to him and the blanket tossed onto it looked- no. Please no, Was that a snuggie? Truly this was hell on earth.

Still, he went without complaint as Chiyoh helped him around the body and down onto the sagging couch. At least she didn’t attempt to make him use that ridiculous blanket as anything other than a shield against several dubious stains.

“Comfortable?”

“As comfortable as it is possible to be under the circumstances,” he replied, attempting to hold on to at least some measure of grace. “Thank you.”

“You have the doctors notes?”

“In the bag,” Hannibal said, not that he needed them. As glorious as the battle had been, his resulting injuries were rather pedestrian. “In the car.”

“And everything you need to access that account?”

“Of course, though it’ll be about three weeks before we’re able to.”

“But you’ll be able to see things through until then?”

“I’m sure Will will prove himself to be an excellent provider,” he replied with a small and sad smile. “I know you’re leaving Chiyoh. You don’t need to fret about me so.”

“Is that not what family does?” she repeated before taking to her knees in front of him. A still gloved hand swept his hair out of his eyes, the touch light as a whisper. “I love you, I truly do. But I hope I never see you again.”

“And I love you. If remaining absent from you life is what it takes to make you happy, then I shall certainly try to accommodate you.” He didn’t tell her he would miss her. He didn’t want to lie.

A relieved sigh and an understanding nod met his words before her hand settled more fully against the side of his face. She leaned in to place a kiss on his brow and he accepted it with a brief fluttering of eyes. Final goodbye given, she rose to her feet with grace and a sort of sad fondness in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. He was under no delusions about who or what he was and knew that feeling affection towards him was likely a double edged blade. It certainly had proven so for Will. And Abigail. And Alana. And Bedelia. And Jack.

“Will,” she said, her voice flat and hard as she turned to face him. Hannibal was almost proud when Will did the polite thing and shut the water off before turning to look at her. His eyes met hers briefly before flicking down to her nose and back in a furtive dance. He was trying, and that was really all Hannibal could ask for in that regard.

“Chiyoh,” he replied, almost matching her tone.

“Look after him. Or I’ll  _ take care _ of you.”

The slightest smile twitched at the corner of Will’s mouth, likely tugging at the stitches in his cheek, and he gave a small nod in understanding. Chiyoh returned the nod but not the smile and then, just like that, she left. Not a look back, not a verbal farewell. Just a few quiet steps and she was likely gone from his life forever.

“She just threatened to kill you,” Hannibal pointed out, only half meaning to. The painkillers had loosened his tongue a little too much but left him sharp enough to realise when he was talking like an idiot.

“But she didn’t actually try to,” Will replied, reaching for a dubiously clean towel to dry his hands on. “I’ll consider it a step in the right direction.”

“It’s almost a shame that you won’t get to progress further. I think the two of you could have been friends if given more time.” Will’s hands froze and he stared at them a moment before meeting Hannibal’s eyes with an unwavering gaze.

“She threw me off and train and shot me,” he said, not unreasonably. It took an embarrassing length of time for Hannibal to realise that only he was allowed such liberties with near impunity. “And I shifted your pieces on the board and ended up causing her to become a killer. I doubt we would have gotten much past cordial.”

“You gave her her freedom,” he replied, shifting a little as he did and biting back the grimace. “I would have thought she would be grateful for the final push.”

“There was a push alright,” Will grumbled, dropping the towel onto a table that frankly needed burning. Hannibal watched as Will glanced over the offending object, then reached out with one hand to see if it would shift under his touch. A little pressure and it swayed on its legs to a frankly alarming extent, eliciting a scowl from his companion. Whatever the test had been, the table had clearly failed it. Will’s analytic gaze started to roam the interior of the cabin and Hannibal grew quickly bored with the number of DIY projects clearly sprouting behind those eyes.

Instead, Hannibal found his attention drawn to the corpse on the floor. Skinny but wiry from what he could see, they had probably been deceptively strong. Though clearly not as strong as Will. His dear, delightful and ever surprising Will.

“If you’re looking to make home improvements, may I suggest not treating the blood on the rug? It’s certainly an improvement on its pattern.”

Will’s eyes went from glowering at a door frame of all things to owlishly blinking at him before rolling when his mind caught up to what had been said.

“Of course aesthetics would be your primary concern,” he grumbled, but there was a small upturn to his lips and fond note in his voice that belayed his true feelings. “I’ll do what I can to avoid offending your sensibilities while making this place more liveable.” Then he turned his attention to the very body Hannibal had been considering, his nose scrunching up like a displeased hound as he did. “Are you wanting to keep any of that by the way?” he asked, vaguely gesturing at the man he had killed.

“We’re hardly in a position to waste resources,” Hannibal replied, likely too quickly and all to aware of his accelerated heart rate. The sudden swoop in his damaged guts a hard and swift reminder of the effect Will had on him. “Though I confess to being curious about you’re new found calmness. Before you would have been wracked with guilt or denial. But now, now you seem, not proud but certainly unfazed.” A little huff that wasn’t quite a laugh met his words.

“Are you really that surprised Hannibal? Doing bad things to bad people feels good. He was a sexual sadist, likely inspired by religiosity or an overbearing mother figure, though most likely a combination of the two. If he wasn’t a killer, then he was a ticking time bomb.” Will gave another pause, his scowl focused on the body which certainly was good for Hannibal avoiding embarrassment as he ran his teeth over his bottom lip. It would be a miracle if he didn’t do something undignified while still on the painkillers. His usually iron clad self control seemed to melt like butter under the light of Will’s presence.

“I have no idea how to butcher a human,” Will continued, glaring down at the body as if it had done something to personally offend him. “You’re going to have to walk me through it if you’re wanting to keep anything even vaguely complicated.”

A small sound got stuck in the back of Hannibal’s throat as the image of him guiding Will’s bloodied hand through the dismemberment flashed before him. Will studious and serious as Hannibal leaned against him. His focus on the blade and Hannibal’s focus on him.

“Are you okay? It sounded like you were choking for a second there.”

“I’m fine,” he said after clearing his throat, thankful that he seemed to lack the capacity to blush. “I would be delighted to teach you how to butcher Will. But the body will need to be bled first. Properly. Hung upside down with the throat cut.”

Will turned his attention back to the body, hands on his hips and fingers drumming as he visibly considered what to do about it.

“I’m going to have to have a look around, see if there’s anything useful. Make a start on making this place, well . . .”

“Habitable?”

“I was going to start with clean,” he sighed before rubbing at his forehead and nose. “Habitable is a few steps down the road.” Wills focus turned back to Hannibal, his frown melting away a little as he approached the couch. The feather light touch of Will’s fingers drifted across his knuckles, Hannibal went rigid. His eyes fixed on the point of contact as Will settled his hand over his in a warm and gentle gesture. “You try and get some rest and I’ll make a start,” Will said softly, his thumb running across Hannibal’s knuckles a few times before he finally let go and went off to explore without further comment, leaving Hannibal alone, baffled and slightly aroused.

For long moments all he could do was stare at his hand and listen to Will move around the shack with considered quietness. The touch was largely unprecedented. Such gentleness and affection had been solely reserved for moments of great trauma when it came to their relationship. Each embrace at the expense of a pound of flesh. Yet this, this had been freely given and unprompted.

And Hannibal had no idea what to do with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the Kudos and comments on the last chapter, I really appreciate them. This is going to be a very talky fic, so I hope everyone is getting settle in. The next update will probably take a while longer as I need to finish my season 3 rewatch to make sure I get the details right. Hopefully it won't be much longer than a week though.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this this.


	3. Terms and Conditions

A rough wet drag across his palm had Hannibal jolting to wakefulness with teeth bared and a hot agony flaring through his gut. A click of a tongue before he could lash out and a wiry grey thing lolloped away. His head was spinning and his eyes took a moment to clear from their sleep. A moment later and he thought he knew what he was looking at and certainly knew what he was smelling.

The dog was a huge mongrel, an Irish wolfhound crossed with who knew what other monstrously proportioned hound. It was grey with overly large jowls and thick coat of still damp wiry grey. There were few worse scents in the world than wet dog. The creatures only redeeming feature as far as Hannibal was concerned was the wide and soft smile it had Will wearing as they fussed over it, scratching behind its ears headless of the damp.

“Sorry about that,” he said, not looking up and instead focusing his eyes on the damned dog. “I tried to stop them, but I’m not used to dogs this big.”

“They belonged to our friend I take it,” Hannibal stated, his pain making him uncharitable as he tried to push himself into a more comfortable position. Hardly and easy feat with a barely healed gunshot wound in his abdomen and with painkillers no longer enough to let him ride the wave without being pulled under.

“Wait, let me help,” Will said, gently pushing the dog aside. Hannibal bit back an insult as the other man made his way to his side. “He was keeping her chained up outside, behind the house,” Will continued as he assisted Hannibal into a more upright position, allowing him to more clearly take in the changes about the room he was in. Either Will could move more quietly than a ghost or Hannibal had been sleeping like the dead.

The body was gone, as was the atrocious rug. Blood splatter had been at least superficially cleaned away along with the layer of grime that had seemed to cover everything. The dishes in the sink were gone and the table now had a small bundle of mostly clean looking blankets and pillows. If it hadn’t been for the dog then things would have smelt considerably better as well, though the chemical citrus seemed to permeate everything and the yellow bottle by the sink made him think that Will had needed to resort to using dish soap for all of it.

Position adjusted, Will turned from him again to grab a ratty but otherwise inoffensive pillow from the collection on the table. He helped Hannibal to lift his broken leg, pulling another grimace from him as he did, but got the pillow beneath his ankle regardless. His leg didn’t require constant elevation, but he supposed the position hadn’t been ideal as he had slept.

“How long was asleep?” Hannibal asked, noting that the light was artificial and the curtainless windows showed little more than reflections of the interior and the blackness beyond.

“About seven hours,” Will informed him. “I figured you needed it when you didn’t so much as twitch while I was moving the body.”

If a single touch had not been enough to rouse him, Hannibal would have been extremely perturbed to hear such a thing. It was the combination of his body’s natural healing process and the drugs required to keep the agonies of that process at bay, he knew that. But that didn’t make the surge of nausea feel any better when he realised just how vulnerable he had truly been.

“And yet I feel as though I could sleep for seven more,” he replied, voice groggy and a yawn fighting it’s way free. Brushing aside discomfort and playing off vulnerability had become a habit of his. Better he speak of the undeniable and hope that Will would not pry any deeper. “I don’t suppose there is a serviceable bed on the property?”

“Not really,” Will replied with a grimace, the huge hound returning to him for more attention. The creature had clearly been starved of it to take to a stranger so quickly. “The mattress seems about my age and I don’t think it’s ever been cleaned. You’re probably best off sticking with the couch. At least until I’ve gotten into town to do some laundry and maybe get hold of some more blankets.”

Hannibal found his eyes narrowing at the bundle on the table.

“Were you planning to sleep on the floor Will?” It came out as an accusation more than a question. The thought of it sending an irrational little flicker of anger through him. Will simply shrugged, unconcerned.

“Better that than the alternative. I got a good look around at least. Found a few useful things even if the bed wasn’t one of them.”

“Oh,” Hannibal added, more out of obligation than interest. His hunger was making itself known and between one discomfort and the next he was beginning to worry he would get snappish if he let more than a handful of syllables pass his lips.

“I found a truck, the generator has about three days worth of fuel left but there’s a wood pile out back so we’ll be fine for firewood at least. Enough food to last us a little longer than that, though it’s mostly tins- don’t give me that look. I know you’d never normally eat anything that wasn’t fresh but it’s not like we’re going to have much of a choice for a while.” With a long suffering sigh, Hannibal gestured for him to continue. While a fight seemed appealing to him in the short term, long term it would only hinder things. Besides, Will and he had fought enough for several life times and he had no wish to push his luck while at such a physical disadvantage.

“I also found about seventy dollars, some tools, a rifle with half a box of ammo and the putrefying remains of I  _ think _ three women in a tub in the woodshed.”

“Delightful,” Hannibal remarked with his nose wrinkled in disgust. While he was aware that not every killer shared his flare for the dramatic or his appreciation of art, it always repulsed him to cross paths with such base creatures. More than anything, this killer had simply been unhygienic. To a man as meticulous as he was, it was disgusting to even contemplate. Leaving bodies to just moulder away. Wasteful and vile. Either put them to use or dispose of them properly. The strong stink of a badly rotten corpse was the only thing he could think of that was any worse than the scent he was currently having to endure.

“You were right then,” he continued. “A killer and one that likely has only gotten away with it by virtue of living out of sight and picking victims that are easily overlooked by society.”

“You don’t have sound so disappointed,” Will chided him, a good natured half smile in place as the enormous hound put a paw to his leg as if in offence at being ignored for too long. Resuming his petting, Will continued. “I still killed him in cold blood. I don’t share your pathology Hannibal. Bad manners are never going to be enough to warrant a death sentence from me. It simply doesn’t move me the way it moves you.”

“So you’re resolved to being a killer of killers, yet here you are, with me.” And apparently pain made him as reckless as it did sharp tongued.

“No. I’ve  _ chosen _ to be with you. Knowing who you are, knowing what you do and with no intent to stop you or any expectation that you do anything other than try to not get caught.” One hand settled on the dogs head, Will reached up to rub at his eyes. “Frankly, I have no idea what would make me want to kill a specific person outside of the realm of other killers. I spent so long looking through their eyes that I feel utterly familiar with them, and frankly, it’s a familiarity that has done little but breed contempt. Especially for men like this, or like the Dragon.”

“But not for me?” Hannibal found himself asking, genuinely curious.

“Oh there’s been plenty of contempt for you along the way,” Will replied, almost off hand. “But there’s also so much more. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. And don’t think I’m unaware of how easily I could slip back into my other life with some half excuse about amnesia. I am here because I want to be with you. But I have terms.”

“Any successful relationship has clear boundaries,” Hannibal conceded, his heart pounding and his head near spinning at Will’s words. The raw wound of hope pulsing the way it had when Will had looked at the aftermath of their joint carnage and allowed himself to tell the truth about it. “We would be wise to discuss ours as soon as possible.”

He could well imagine the lengthy list that Will had, fed by paranoia and experience both. No bone saws in the house would be a reasonable one. No embracing while knives are within reach was one both of them might stand to benefit from. There would be more, he was sure, but right then it was difficult to force his way through the fog and he was more interested in preparing to negotiate than he was in attempting to anticipate the demands of a man he had never been entirely able to pr edict.

“You are not going to kill Alana. Or Margot, and definitely not Molly,” he began, making sure to meet Hannibal’s eyes in order to properly convey the seriousness of his words.

“You seem very sure of that.”

“They’re my terms Hannibal,” he continued, his gaze skittering away again as it so often did. “I’m happy to explain them if you want me to, but you either get me or you get petty revenge. You don’t get both.” 

“Alana I understand. Margot even, she carried your child for however brief a time. I can see how she would be so important to you. But Molly? The very personification of the lie that you lived for three years. I fail to see how she could possibly be worthy of such a benediction.”

“Then let me tell you about Molly.” 

He was going to regret this. He just knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, thanks for reading :)
> 
> We're about to really gear up with this one, so I hope people are enjoying what I've written so far.


	4. Adopting a Pet

The bar was dive. The clientele as held together with tape and filler as the building itself. Tubes of neon signs serving to hide imperfection of all stripes in unnatural light and deep shadows. Nothing could hide the sour stink of stale beer and human sweat though. It was an awful place to drink and worse place to work, but Molly had bills to pay.

Or, more accurately, she had someone else’s debt to pay.

Tips were hard to come by in a place where people were more interested in draining the bar than they were in the people enabling that. One or two stand outs tipped well, the cougar with the bad bleach job and new guy with the curly hair and bad attitude jumped to mind, but most handed over not a dime more than they had to.

Curls was still propping up the bar, head in his arms and en empty glass beside him as Molly did her last rounds of clearing out empties and wiping down vacant tables. Still half an hour before closing, but on a week night she was pretty sure no one else would be turning up and was just considering if she could get away with turfing out the new regular so far before closing time when the door opening proved her wrong.

Biting back a sigh, she set down her arm full of empties on the edge of the bar before turning to glance up at the latecomer.

Through the door sauntered the symbol of her previous mistakes given life. Tall and somehow scrawny, he didn’t look all that threatening, but she knew better.

“You here for a drink Carter?” she asked, hoping she could get behind the bar before he got anywhere near her. Every animal instinct screamed at her to run or to grab something she could swing with. Instead she started to calmly walk.

“I’ll take a bottle of Jack to go with that money you owe me,” he replied, smug and sneering. Surely he wouldn’t start anything with a witness? She wouldn’t entirely put it passed him given Curls hadn’t so much as twitched.

“I don’t owe you any money,” she insisted, knowing it would do her no good. “And the Jack isn’t mine to just hand out.”

“See, that’s not how it works. You know that Molly. You know that. Your guy borrowed the money. With him gone, you’re liable for it.”

He was close, too close, and getting closer by the second with her escape route getting further out of reach.

“That isn’t how banks work.”

“I’m not a bank. You know, this dance was cute at first, but now I’m getting kind of sick of it.” In her face now, looming over her and she knew this wasn’t going to end well. “I want my fucking money Molly. Pay up, or I’m taking it out of your hide.”

“I don’t have i-”

The blow knocked her off her feet and into the bar. Knowing it was coming didn’t stop her head from spinning or her jaw blooming with pain.

A crash and a cry reached her as the floor wobbled under her. But no other strike came. Nothing knocked her on her ass as she struggled to her feet.

Violence. Pure violence. A table had been turned over, the chairs knocked aside. Blood on the floor and there he was. Her knight in a flannel shirt. Teeth bared, straddling his prey and landing punch after punch on Carter’s increasingly mangled face. Splayed legs twitched, gurgles rose up in place of pleading. It didn’t take a genius to know what was happening and even through the shock of it, Molly knew.

“You’re killing him,” she said as a sigh, half relief and half resignation.

And that was enough. Like barking “leave it!” at one of her dogs, Curls froze instantly. Fist in the air, ready to land another blow. Knuckles bloody and trembling, he staggered to his feet and away from the barely conscious wreckage of a man on the floor. Backing off until it would take more than a handful of steps for him to get close enough to finish what he had started. His eyes were on the floor, avoidant and twitchy.

“You should call an ambulance,” he said, voice rough and only a little slurred. Molly found herself nodding, more than a little reluctant. She backed towards to bar to get to a phone, as distrusting as she was grateful, still unsure if this man was a rabid dog or just had a strong protective drive.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. He should never have touched you.”

And just like that, she knew she was safe to turn her back on him.

The next few hours were a blur of emergency services. Paramedics, police and flashing lights all around. It should have been a stressful nightmare, but Molly couldn’t think like that. She had a purpose. A plan. And to complete it she raised absolute hell.

Her saviours name was Will Graham, she had discovered and with a quick Google she had discovered so much more. The violence clicked into place where it belonged and only made her even angrier and ever more certain.

They were holding him, though she was going to make damn sure it wasn’t for long. She had leverage and she knew it. He had been protecting her from someone that had assaulted her, had been threatening her well within ear shot. Sure he had done enough damage that that douche-bag would probably be eating through a tube, but he’d been at the bar all night of course he couldn’t properly judge a proportional response.

A lot of empty placating came her way, but that didn’t deter her. She begged, she pleaded, even stooped to crying before finally pushing the fact that if that dick bag tried to press charges, then so would she.

In the end all it got was her being stuck in a chair like a kid in time out. It wasn’t even her efforts that got Will out of wherever that had been keeping him. Instead it was a single phone call from some guy named Jack that had Will being escorted out from some back room, looking vacant and directionless in a way that was all too familiar to someone with her habit of taking in strays.

The moment he was a free man, she was at his side.

“Hey, you need a ride?” she asked, making his eyes flicker to her and away several times.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea considering-”

“That you saved me? Yeh, I’m sure.” A frown wrinkled his brow and she could tell he was about to give her the stranger danger talk, so to cut him off, she took hold of the hand he had used to near beat a man to death. It was grazed and could do with dressing, but at least he had been allowed to wash it.

“You should at least let me treat this,” she told him. A deepening of his frown was the closest thing to an answer she got, so she led him out of the station by the hand and managed to cajole him into her beaten up piece of shit care before wheedling his address out of him.

  
  


* * *

Hannibal glared at Will’s hand with an empty plate in his lap. The cheap food sat ill in his stomach and stained his tongue, further robbing him of his charity. It didn’t matter that he knew it was a ridiculous thing to be jealous of, the spike of possessiveness he felt at someone else dressing Will’s wounds was hot and unyielding. If the damned woman had been in the same room as them then injuries or not, Hannibal would have ripped her head off with his bare hands.

“Did she do a passable job?” he managed to force out, able to imagine the intimacy of the act all too well.

Will shrugged, infuriatingly nonchalant as he rose from his feet, the monstrous beast flicking an ear from it’s place on the floor by the table.

“Fine I guess. Not really my area of expertise,” he admitted before collecting the plate and cutlery from Hannibal to deposit in the sink. “You know you should be thankful to her, don’t you?”

“Oh?” he replied, not trusting himself to maintain his manners with anymore.

“I’d be dead if I hadn’t met her.”

For once Hannibal found words drying up. What could he even say to that? He had tried to kill Will himself often enough that any apology for leaving him broken enough to consider death would ring false or worse, manipulative. All he could do was watch him fill a glass with water and pop a few pills into his hand before making his way back to Hannibal’s side.

Shell shocked, he accepted Will’s offerings without complaint, though he did reflexively check that the pills were all present and correct.

“You really would have done that?” Hannibal found himself asking, his heart aching at the very thought of it.

“Killed myself?” Will clarified, meeting his eyes and holding it for once. “No, but I would have done something reckless and stupid that got me killed.” With a sigh, he rubbed a hand over his face. Perhaps embarrassed, perhaps uncomfortable with picking at old wounds.

“I was lost after you turned yourself in,” he admitted, the words sticking in his throat like broken glass. “I’d spent so long getting into your head that I’d misplaced myself, then you were gone. And I missed you so damn much and hated myself for it at the same time that I just started spiralling out of control.”

Hannibal could barely believe his ears. While had known that surely he must have meant  _ something _ to Will, that it couldn’t all have been faked, to actually hear him say it was world shaking.

Rough fingers brushed against his forehead as Will swept aside a few stray strands of hair with a fond frown that had Hannibal slack with shock.

“What the hell did they do to your hair in there? Like defacing the Mona Lisa. Take your pills Hannibal. Then get some rest, I’ll make sure we’re safe.”

Still reeling, he did as he was told. Settling in to try and fit the new side of Will into his perception of the man before slipping into a drugged out sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I'm not sure how long this is going to be, probably about 10 chapters. I have a loose outline and plan of where I want to go with it, but I'm pretty much using this to get back into writing. Hope you enjoyed it.


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